What is Mwonzora up to?

It has been clear for a while now that opposition MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora is an opportunistic power-hungry politician, more concerned with his place at the top table to the exclusion of everything else.

The difference between Mwonzora and bitter rival, Nelson Chamisa of the MDC Alliance is like day and night. One analyst put it like this: Chamisa seeks political legitimacy that is based on a free and fair election, while Mwonzora is preoccupied with a strategy of political accommodation rather than respecting the will of the people.

He clearly does not want elections where he will be exposed to an electorate that feels that he has sold out to the hated administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF party.

So, reports that he nicodemously met President Emmerson Mnangagwa on the day the date for the holding of by-elections was announced are cause for concern given that last year the sly politician did the same in a bid to cause postponement of the 2023 plebiscite in favour of a government of national unity (GNU).

The nation should be concerned because a GNU is not the solution to our perennial problems, which require genuine all-embracing national dialogue centred on political and economic reforms and pave way for a democratic process leading to elections that usher in a legitimate administration. Such a process is the only route to Canaan for our beloved country that has known no political or economic stability for close to three decades.

Mwonzora cannot fool the nation into accommodating him in a GNU yet it knows full-well that he represents no-one in Parliament other than his selfish interests. Lest we forget, MDC-T is part of the Political Actors Dialogue, a grouping of fringe political parties that performed dismally in the 2018 general elections, which was put together by Mnangagwa as a façade for dialogue when his overtures for dialogue had been snubbed by MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.

Then MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe, who is now Mwonzora's deputy, was an active part of that charade which took her and others to the West to convince it to remove sanctions slapped on Zimbabwe for gross human rights abuses and failure to stem endemic corruption.

We wonder why Mwonzora has decided to go solo when that platform is still alive and kicking. Is it that he thinks he can secure a gratuitous position for himself in such a GNU?

The nation should dispense with such self-serving leaders because at this very crucial time for the struggle to unshackle ourselves from the bondage of dictatorship, we need unwavering selfless leaders. We need leaders, who are not lured by trinkets, which our President conveniently dangles to the power hungry and lily-levered opposition politicians with no following on the ground.

We warn Mwonzora that his shenanigans will not take him anywhere because the nation is watching him. He should not deceive himself that since he, with the help of State machinery, almost decimated MDC Alliance, he is so cunning to be able to pull wool over the whole nation.

Zimbabweans want real change which cannot be delivered by self-seeking individuals bent on lining their pockets by hopping from one party to the other in search of positions.

Or maybe Mwonzora knows he stands no chance in an open election, so cosying up to Mnangagwa is the only way he can stay politically relevant?